Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez roams greater L.A. with Times photographer Francine Orr and videographer Albert Lee and describes a scene of despair among the homeless.

They’re part of the Los Angeles streetscape, as familiar as the swaying palm trees and idling traffic, living under freeways, alongside riverbeds and on canyon hillsides. The mentally ill, the drug addicts, the economically disadvantaged, many with their life belongings in a backpack or shopping cart. In this ongoing series, Without a Home, The Times is examining the crisis of homelessness in our region.

Two proposals would eliminate some hurdles for permanent supportive housing projects and make it easier to temporarily convert motels into homeless housing. But some critics say the supportive housing measure goes too far, depriving residents of a chance to voice concerns about projects.

A plan to make city property available for homeless housing projects is now focused almost entirely on about 120 public parking lots, most acquired by the city in the 1950s and 1960s to spur suburban commercial development. The conversions will require both architectural and political ingenuity.

It’s a bad idea to raise the minimum age for buying long guns. It’s an even worse idea to arm teachers

$2 billion to help house California’s homeless isn’t being spent — and no one knows when it will be

For the Record

Montecito is warned to evacuate ahead of storm, and jittery residents are ready to go

4h

So sorry if this is too sad for you… I’ve posted many articles from OC Register about Homelessness in OC and the Santa Ana River all cleared out….
This is an article and a VIDEO from LA Times.
Without a Home: Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez roams greater L.A. with Times photographer Francine Orr and videographer Albert Lee and describes a scene of despair among the homeless.
They’re part of the Los Angeles streetscape, as familiar as the swaying palm trees and idling traffic, living under freeways, alongside riverbeds and on canyon hillsides. The mentally ill, the drug addicts, the economically disadvantaged, many with their life belongings in a backpack or shopping cart. In this ongoing series, Without a Home, The Times is examining the crisis of homelessness in our region.
READ MORE:
http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-without-a-home-sg-2018-storygallery.html

On Monday, following a six-day blitz during which county officials moved 732 homeless people into local motels and shelters, the once-bustling tent encampment sat unoccupied. The last few occupants packed their belongings and left. Sheriff’s deputies guarded locked gates to the flood control channel, preventing people from reentering.

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The few remaining homeless people living on the Santa Ana River Trail in are packing up Anaheim on Monday, Feb 26, 2018. (Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)

“This is a momentous occasion,” said Brooke Weitzman, an attorney who sued Orange County on behalf of seven homeless people, alleging the county’s initial attempts to clear the riverbed encampment in January violated her clients’ civil rights. She and the county later negotiated a stipulation, under pressure from a federal judge, allowing the county to resume clearing the encampment if it relocated its occupants to motels and other shelters.

“We have hundreds of people who would have been scattered in neighborhoods or arrested, now inside for the first time in years and connected to social services,” Weitzman said.

But getting people out of the riverbed is only phase one of the plan, she reminded.

The motel stays are essentially a stopgap fix to give the county time to expand its capacity at local shelters.

County spokeswoman Jen Nentwig said the county already has increased capacity at the Bridges at Kraemer Place homeless shelter in Anaheim, adding beds for an additional 65 people. County supervisors have discussed placing tents or semi-permanent structures on county land in Orange or Santa Ana to temporarily house more people.

County officials also agreed to clinically assess all of the former riverbed inhabitants.

“The OC Health Care Agency outreach folks will go and visit each of the individuals and conduct the assessment, and then go from there as far as identifying the most appropriate resources for each person,” Nentwig said.

The county attempted to clear the Santa Ana River encampment beginning Jan. 22 so it could conduct an environmental cleanup of the flood control channel. But U.S. District Court Judge David O. Carter suspended that process by granting a temporary restraining order in a Jan. 29 lawsuit over camp’s eviction. After Carter helped broker a deal to get encampment residents into motels, the county resumed evictions on Feb. 20, offering homeless people shelter and services along the way.

Supervisors Todd Spitzer and Andrew Do said they were proud of the county and its staff for working quickly – and long hours – over the past week to find enough shelter for all the riverbed inhabitants and get them relocated.

Toppled tents and piles of debris still littered the riverbed Monday, and public works crews moved methodically through the area, clearing the trash. It will likely take another week until that process is finished and the remediation project can begin.

Sheriff’s deputies will begin enforcing trespassing laws in the riverbed and can cite or arrest anyone who re-enters the area.

Around 15 homeless people gathered outside a locked gate on Monday morning, among the last people to leave the encampment.

One woman was waiting on county staff to provide her with a bus ticket back to West Virginia. One man said he had lung cancer and was awaiting transport to recuperative care to receive medical treatment. Another man who had been found in the encampment on Monday morning – perhaps the final occupant of the tent city – lay slumped against a wall in tatters, head down, twitching uncontrollably.

John Leonard, 65, said he had been living in the riverbed for a quarter-century and wished he didn’t have to leave.

Leonard said he returned to get some of his clothes, which he left behind when county workers moved him into a motel a few days prior. He said he’s thankful for the help but he’s still getting used to living inside after nearly half a lifetime outdoors.

“It’s different,” Leonard said. “Four walls. It’s nice, but I might give it all up to come back out here.”

Mental illness cases have risen in California, while treatment and funding have not kept up.

Every Southern California county has experienced an upward trend in the rate at which children under 18 years are hospitalized for a mental health issue.

“The mental health system has been plagued by gaps in services, access and funding,” says Dr. Dr. Clayton with St. Joseph Hoag Health. “People with severe mental health and substance abuse conditions struggle to receive needed care in their communities due to stigma and difficulty navigating a complicated system.

“Often, patients with severe mental illness and substance use disorders end up in hospital emergency rooms because they have nowhere else to go.”

Since 1995, California’s population has increased by more than 7 million people, but the facilities and beds for acute psychiatric care have decreased.

Leonardo Castañeda | inewsource

Taxpayers in the San Ysidro School District paid Superintendent Julio Fonseca, who resigned last month, at least $1 million in total compensation for 26 months of work in one of San Diego County’s poorest school districts.

inewsource is an independent and nonprofit journalism organization in San Diego, and relies on grants and philanthropists to support its investigative content. Click here to learn more.

inewsource is the first to detail Fonseca’s compensation from his time in San Ysidro, including two little-known perks for life insurance and health care. His salary, benefits and severance package average out to make him the highest paid school district superintendent in San Diego County and the second highest paid in California based on data from Transparent California. The nonprofit think tank compiles public employee pay and pension information.

“I think he (Fonseca) abused his power. He took the board as fools,” said school board member Rodolfo Linares, who believes he and his fellow trustees were misled last year when they approved certain benefits for the superintendent.

Linares said he wants the board to investigate how that happened and wants the district to rescind Fonseca’s nearly $376,000 separation agreement.

“I’m not going to be silent. (The) community needs to know,” Linares said. “We are board members, we were elected to protect the district and the students. And it’s our duty to investigate.”

inewsource’s attempts to reach Fonseca by phone and at his publicly listed residence were unsuccessful.

By combing through his contract and other public records, inewsource pieced together this breakdown of Fonseca’s compensation from July 1, 2015 to Sept. 1, 2017:

Cumulative salary: $479,234.

Separation agreement: $375,703.

Deferred life insurance: $106,000.

Gap health care coverage: $37,000.

Mileage and cellphone: $15,600.

One-time housing allowance: $10,000.

Health care benefits: $45,500.

Fonseca’s compensation, excluding his pension, averaged out to about $493,000 annually. That’s significantly more than the roughly $346,000 in compensation that Transparent California said Cindy Marten made in 2016 to head the San Diego Unified School District, the second largest district in California.

Cash Flowed to Clinton Foundation Amid Russian Uranium Deal

A Uranium One sign that points to a 35,000-acre ranch owned by John Christensen, near the town of Gillette, Wyo. Uranium One has the mining rights to Mr. Christensen’s property.CreditMatthew Staver for The New York Times

The headline on the website Pravda trumpeted President Vladimir V. Putin’s latest coup, its nationalistic fervor recalling an era when its precursor served as the official mouthpiece of the Kremlin: “Russian Nuclear Energy Conquers the World.”

The article, in January 2013, detailed how the Russian atomic energy agency, Rosatom, had taken over a Canadian company with uranium-mining stakes stretching from Central Asia to the American West. The deal made Rosatom one of the world’s largest uranium producers and brought Mr. Putin closer to his goal of controlling much of the global uranium supply chain.

But the untold story behind that story is one that involves not just the Russian president, but also a former American president and a woman who would like to be the next one.

At the heart of the tale are several men, leaders of the Canadian mining industry, who have been major donors to the charitable endeavors of former President Bill Clinton and his family. Members of that group built, financed and eventually sold off to the Russians a company that would become known as Uranium One.

Beyond mines in Kazakhstan that are among the most lucrative in the world, the sale gave the Russians control of one-fifth of all uranium production capacity in the United States. Since uranium is considered a strategic asset, with implications for national security, the deal had to be approved by a committee composed of representatives from a number of United States government agencies. Among the agencies that eventually signed off was the State Department, then headed by Mr. Clinton’s wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

As the Russians gradually assumed control of Uranium One in three separate transactions from 2009 to 2013, Canadian records show, a flow of cash made its way to the Clinton Foundation. Uranium One’s chairman used his family foundation to make four donations totaling $2.35 million. Those contributions were not publicly disclosed by the Clintons, despite an agreement Mrs. Clinton had struck with the Obama White House to publicly identify all donors. Other people with ties to the company made donations as well.

And shortly after the Russians announced their intention to acquire a majority stake in Uranium One, Mr. Clinton received $500,000 for a Moscow speech from a Russian investment bank with links to the Kremlin that was promoting Uranium One stock.

Photo

Frank Giustra, right, a mining financier, has donated $31.3 million to the foundation run by former President Bill Clinton, left.CreditJoaquin Sarmiento/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

At the time, both Rosatom and the United States government made promises intended to ease concerns about ceding control of the company’s assets to the Russians. Those promises have been repeatedly broken, records show.

The New York Times’s examination of the Uranium One deal is based on dozens of interviews, as well as a review of public records and securities filings in Canada, Russia and the United States. Some of the connections between Uranium One and the Clinton Foundation were unearthed by Peter Schweizer, a former fellow at the right-leaning Hoover Institution and author of the forthcoming book “Clinton Cash.” Mr. Schweizer provided a preview of material in the book to The Times, which scrutinized his information and built upon it with its own reporting.

Whether the donations played any role in the approval of the uranium deal is unknown. But the episode underscores the special ethical challenges presented by the Clinton Foundation, headed by a former president who relied heavily on foreign cash to accumulate $250 million in assets even as his wife helped steer American foreign policy as secretary of state, presiding over decisions with the potential to benefit the foundation’s donors.

In a statement, Brian Fallon, a spokesman for Mrs. Clinton’s presidential campaign, said no one “has ever produced a shred of evidence supporting the theory that Hillary Clinton ever took action as secretary of state to support the interests of donors to the Clinton Foundation.” He emphasized that multiple United States agencies, as well as the Canadian government, had signed off on the deal and that, in general, such matters were handled at a level below the secretary. “To suggest the State Department, under then-Secretary Clinton, exerted undue influence in the U.S. government’s review of the sale of Uranium One is utterly baseless,” he added.

American political campaigns are barred from accepting foreign donations. But foreigners may give to foundations in the United States. In the days since Mrs. Clinton announced her candidacy for president, the Clinton Foundation has announced changes meant to quell longstanding concerns about potential conflicts of interest in such donations; it has limited donations from foreign governments, with many, like Russia’s, barred from giving to all but its health care initiatives. That policy stops short of a more stringent agreement between Mrs. Clinton and the Obama administration that was in effect while she was secretary of state.

Either way, the Uranium One deal highlights the limits of such prohibitions. The foundation will continue to accept contributions from foreign sources whose interests, like Uranium One’s, may overlap with those of foreign governments, some of which may be at odds with the United States.

When the Uranium One deal was approved, the geopolitical backdrop was far different from today’s. The Obama administration was seeking to “reset” strained relations with Russia. The deal was strategically important to Mr. Putin, who shortly after the Americans gave their blessing sat down for a staged interview with Rosatom’s chief executive, Sergei Kiriyenko. “Few could have imagined in the past that we would own 20 percent of U.S. reserves,” Mr. Kiriyenko told Mr. Putin.

GRAPHIC

Donations to the Clinton Foundation, and a Russian Uranium Takeover

Uranium investors gave millions to the Clinton Foundation while Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s office was involved in approving a Russian bid for mining assets in Kazakhstan and the United States.

OPEN GRAPHIC

Now, after Russia’s annexation of Crimea and aggression in Ukraine, the Moscow-Washington relationship is devolving toward Cold War levels, a point several experts made in evaluating a deal so beneficial to Mr. Putin, a man known to use energy resources to project power around the world.

“Should we be concerned? Absolutely,” said Michael McFaul, who served under Mrs. Clinton as the American ambassador to Russia but said he had been unaware of the Uranium One deal until asked about it. “Do we want Putin to have a monopoly on this? Of course we don’t. We don’t want to be dependent on Putin for anything in this climate.”

A Seat at the Table

The path to a Russian acquisition of American uranium deposits began in 2005 in Kazakhstan, where the Canadian mining financier Frank Giustra orchestrated his first big uranium deal, with Mr. Clinton at his side.

The two men had flown aboard Mr. Giustra’s private jet to Almaty, Kazakhstan, where they dined with the authoritarian president, Nursultan A. Nazarbayev. Mr. Clinton handed the Kazakh president a propaganda coup when he expressed support for Mr. Nazarbayev’s bid to head an international elections monitoring group, undercutting American foreign policy and criticism of Kazakhstan’s poor human rights record by, among others, his wife, then a senator.

Within days of the visit, Mr. Giustra’s fledgling company, UrAsia Energy Ltd., signed a preliminary deal giving it stakes in three uranium mines controlled by the state-run uranium agency Kazatomprom.

If the Kazakh deal was a major victory, UrAsia did not wait long before resuming the hunt. In 2007, it merged with Uranium One, a South African company with assets in Africa and Australia, in what was described as a $3.5 billion transaction. The new company, which kept the Uranium One name, was controlled by UrAsia investors including Ian Telfer, a Canadian who became chairman. Through a spokeswoman, Mr. Giustra, whose personal stake in the deal was estimated at about $45 million, said he sold his stake in 2007.

Soon, Uranium One began to snap up companies with assets in the United States. In April 2007, it announced the purchase of a uranium mill in Utah and more than 38,000 acres of uranium exploration properties in four Western states, followed quickly by the acquisition of the Energy Metals Corporation and its uranium holdings in Wyoming, Texas and Utah. That deal made clear that Uranium One was intent on becoming “a powerhouse in the United States uranium sector with the potential to become the domestic supplier of choice for U.S. utilities,” the company declared.

Photo

Ian Telfer was chairman of Uranium One and made large donations to the Clinton Foundation.CreditGalit Rodan/Bloomberg, via Getty Images

Still, the company’s story was hardly front-page news in the United States — until early 2008, in the midst of Mrs. Clinton’s failed presidential campaign, when The Times published an article revealing the 2005 trip’s link to Mr. Giustra’s Kazakhstan mining deal. It also reported that several months later, Mr. Giustra had donated $31.3 million to Mr. Clinton’s foundation.

(In a statement issued after this article appeared online, Mr. Giustra said he was “extremely proud” of his charitable work with Mr. Clinton, and he urged the media to focus on poverty, health care and “the real challenges of the world.”)

Though the 2008 article quoted the former head of Kazatomprom, Moukhtar Dzhakishev, as saying that the deal required government approval and was discussed at a dinner with the president, Mr. Giustra insisted that it was a private transaction, with no need for Mr. Clinton’s influence with Kazakh officials. He described his relationship with Mr. Clinton as motivated solely by a shared interest in philanthropy.

As if to underscore the point, five months later Mr. Giustra held a fund-raiser for the Clinton Giustra Sustainable Growth Initiative, a project aimed at fostering progressive environmental and labor practices in the natural resources industry, to which he had pledged $100 million. The star-studded gala, at a conference center in Toronto, featured performances by Elton John and Shakira and celebrities like Tom Cruise, John Travolta and Robin Williams encouraging contributions from the many so-called F.O.F.s — Friends of Frank — in attendance, among them Mr. Telfer. In all, the evening generated $16 million in pledges, according to an article in The Globe and Mail.

“None of this would have been possible if Frank Giustra didn’t have a remarkable combination of caring and modesty, of vision and energy and iron determination,” Mr. Clinton told those gathered, adding: “I love this guy, and you should, too.”

But what had been a string of successes was about to hit a speed bump.

Arrest and Progress

By June 2009, a little over a year after the star-studded evening in Toronto, Uranium One’s stock was in free-fall, down 40 percent. Mr. Dzhakishev, the head of Kazatomprom, had just been arrested on charges that he illegally sold uranium deposits to foreign companies, including at least some of those won by Mr. Giustra’s UrAsia and now owned by Uranium One.

Publicly, the company tried to reassure shareholders. Its chief executive, Jean Nortier, issued a confident statement calling the situation a “complete misunderstanding.” He also contradicted Mr. Giustra’s contention that the uranium deal had not required government blessing. “When you do a transaction in Kazakhstan, you need the government’s approval,” he said, adding that UrAsia had indeed received that approval.

But privately, Uranium One officials were worried they could lose their joint mining ventures. American diplomatic cables made public by WikiLeaks also reflect concerns that Mr. Dzhakishev’s arrest was part of a Russian power play for control of Kazakh uranium assets.

At the time, Russia was already eying a stake in Uranium One, Rosatom company documents show. Rosatom officials say they were seeking to acquire mines around the world because Russia lacks sufficient domestic reserves to meet its own industry needs.

It was against this backdrop that the Vancouver-based Uranium One pressed the American Embassy in Kazakhstan, as well as Canadian diplomats, to take up its cause with Kazakh officials, according to the American cables.

“We want more than a statement to the press,” Paul Clarke, a Uranium One executive vice president, told the embassy’s energy officer on June 10, the officer reported in a cable. “That is simply chitchat.” What the company needed, Mr. Clarke said, was official written confirmation that the licenses were valid.

The American Embassy ultimately reported to the secretary of state, Mrs. Clinton. Though the Clarke cable was copied to her, it was given wide circulation, and it is unclear if she would have read it; the Clinton campaign did not address questions about the cable.

What is clear is that the embassy acted, with the cables showing that the energy officer met with Kazakh officials to discuss the issue on June 10 and 11.

Three days later, a wholly owned subsidiary of Rosatom completed a deal for 17 percent of Uranium One. And within a year, the Russian government substantially upped the ante, with a generous offer to shareholders that would give it a 51 percent controlling stake. But first, Uranium One had to get the American government to sign off on the deal.

Among the Donors to the Clinton Foundation

Frank Giustra

$31.3 million and a pledge for $100 million more

He built a company that later merged with Uranium One.

Ian Telfer

$2.35 million

Mining investor who was chairman of Uranium One when an arm of the Russian government, Rosatom, acquired it.

Paul Reynolds

$1 million to $5 million

Adviser on 2007 UrAsia-Uranium One merger. Later helped raise $260 million for the company.

Frank Holmes

$250,000 to $500,000

Chief Executive of U.S. Global Investors Inc., which held $4.7 million in Uranium One shares in the first quarter of 2011.

Neil Woodyer

$50,000 to $100,000

Adviser to Uranium One. Founded Endeavour Mining with Mr. Giustra.

GMP Securities Ltd.

Donating portion of profits

Worked on debt issue that raised $260 million for Uranium One.

The Power to Say No

When a company controlled by the Chinese government sought a 51 percent stake in a tiny Nevada gold mining operation in 2009, it set off a secretive review process in Washington, where officials raised concerns primarily about the mine’s proximity to a military installation, but also about the potential for minerals at the site, including uranium, to come under Chinese control. The officials killed the deal.

Such is the power of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. The committee comprises some of the most powerful members of the cabinet, including the attorney general, the secretaries of the Treasury, Defense, Homeland Security, Commerce and Energy, and the secretary of state. They are charged with reviewing any deal that could result in foreign control of an American business or asset deemed important to national security.

The national security issue at stake in the Uranium One deal was not primarily about nuclear weapons proliferation; the United States and Russia had for years cooperated on that front, with Russia sending enriched fuel from decommissioned warheads to be used in American nuclear power plants in return for raw uranium.

Instead, it concerned American dependence on foreign uranium sources. While the United States gets one-fifth of its electrical power from nuclear plants, it produces only around 20 percent of the uranium it needs, and most plants have only 18 to 36 months of reserves, according to Marin Katusa, author of “The Colder War: How the Global Energy Trade Slipped From America’s Grasp.”

“The Russians are easily winning the uranium war, and nobody’s talking about it,” said Mr. Katusa, who explores the implications of the Uranium One deal in his book. “It’s not just a domestic issue but a foreign policy issue, too.”

When ARMZ, an arm of Rosatom, took its first 17 percent stake in Uranium One in 2009, the two parties signed an agreement, found in securities filings, to seek the foreign investment committee’s review. But it was the 2010 deal, giving the Russians a controlling 51 percent stake, that set off alarm bells. Four members of the House of Representatives signed a letter expressing concern. Two more began pushing legislation to kill the deal.

Senator John Barrasso, a Republican from Wyoming, where Uranium One’s largest American operation was, wrote to President Obama, saying the deal “would give the Russian government control over a sizable portion of America’s uranium production capacity.”

Uranium One’s shareholders were also alarmed, and were “afraid of Rosatom as a Russian state giant,” Sergei Novikov, a company spokesman, recalled in an interview. He said Rosatom’s chief, Mr. Kiriyenko, sought to reassure Uranium One investors, promising that Rosatom would not break up the company and would keep the same management, including Mr. Telfer, the chairman. Another Rosatom official said publicly that it did not intend to increase its investment beyond 51 percent, and that it envisioned keeping Uranium One a public company

American nuclear officials, too, seemed eager to assuage fears. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission wrote to Mr. Barrasso assuring him that American uranium would be preserved for domestic use, regardless of who owned it.

“In order to export uranium from the United States, Uranium One Inc. or ARMZ would need to apply for and obtain a specific NRC license authorizing the export of uranium for use as reactor fuel,” the letter said.

Still, the ultimate authority to approve or reject the Russian acquisition rested with the cabinet officials on the foreign investment committee, including Mrs. Clinton — whose husband was collecting millions in donations from people associated with Uranium One.

Undisclosed Donations

Before Mrs. Clinton could assume her post as secretary of state, the White House demanded that she sign a memorandum of understanding placing limits on the activities of her husband’s foundation. To avoid the perception of conflicts of interest, beyond the ban on foreign government donations, the foundation was required to publicly disclose all contributors.

To judge from those disclosures — which list the contributions in ranges rather than precise amounts — the only Uranium One official to give to the Clinton Foundation was Mr. Telfer, the chairman, and the amount was relatively small: no more than $250,000, and that was in 2007, before talk of a Rosatom deal began percolating.

Photo

Uranium One’s Russian takeover was approved by the United States while Hillary Rodham Clinton was secretary of state.CreditDoug Mills/The New York Times

But a review of tax records in Canada, where Mr. Telfer has a family charity called the Fernwood Foundation, shows that he donated millions of dollars more, during and after the critical time when the foreign investment committee was reviewing his deal with the Russians. With the Russians offering a special dividend, shareholders like Mr. Telfer stood to profit.

His donations through the Fernwood Foundation included $1 million reported in 2009, the year his company appealed to the American Embassy to help it keep its mines in Kazakhstan; $250,000 in 2010, the year the Russians sought majority control; as well as $600,000 in 2011 and $500,000 in 2012. Mr. Telfer said that his donations had nothing to do with his business dealings, and that he had never discussed Uranium One with Mr. or Mrs. Clinton. He said he had given the money because he wanted to support Mr. Giustra’s charitable endeavors with Mr. Clinton. “Frank and I have been friends and business partners for almost 20 years,” he said.

The Clinton campaign left it to the foundation to reply to questions about the Fernwood donations; the foundation did not provide a response.

Mr. Telfer’s undisclosed donations came in addition to between $1.3 million and $5.6 million in contributions, which were reported, from a constellation of people with ties to Uranium One or UrAsia, the company that originally acquired Uranium One’s most valuable asset: the Kazakh mines. Without those assets, the Russians would have had no interest in the deal: “It wasn’t the goal to buy the Wyoming mines. The goal was to acquire the Kazakh assets, which are very good,” Mr. Novikov, the Rosatom spokesman, said in an interview.

Amid this influx of Uranium One-connected money, Mr. Clinton was invited to speak in Moscow in June 2010, the same month Rosatom struck its deal for a majority stake in Uranium One.

The $500,000 fee — among Mr. Clinton’s highest — was paid by Renaissance Capital, a Russian investment bank with ties to the Kremlin that has invited world leaders, including Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, to speak at its investor conferences.

Renaissance Capital analysts talked up Uranium One’s stock, assigning it a “buy” rating and saying in a July 2010 research report that it was “the best play” in the uranium markets. In addition, Renaissance Capital turned up that same year as a major donor, along with Mr. Giustra and several companies linked to Uranium One or UrAsia, to a small medical charity in Colorado run by a friend of Mr. Giustra’s. In a newsletter to supporters, the friend credited Mr. Giustra with helping get donations from “businesses around the world.”

Photo

John Christensen sold the mining rights on his ranch in Wyoming to Uranium One.CreditMatthew Staver for The New York Times

Renaissance Capital would not comment on the genesis of Mr. Clinton’s speech to an audience that included leading Russian officials, or on whether it was connected to the Rosatom deal. According to a Russian government news service, Mr. Putin personally thanked Mr. Clinton for speaking.

A person with knowledge of the Clinton Foundation’s fund-raising operation, who requested anonymity to speak candidly about it, said that for many people, the hope is that money will in fact buy influence: “Why do you think they are doing it — because they love them?” But whether it actually does is another question. And in this case, there were broader geopolitical pressures that likely came into play as the United States considered whether to approve the Rosatom-Uranium One deal.

Diplomatic Considerations

If doing business with Rosatom was good for those in the Uranium One deal, engaging with Russia was also a priority of the incoming Obama administration, which was hoping for a new era of cooperation as Mr. Putin relinquished the presidency — if only for a term — to Dmitri A. Medvedev.

“The assumption was we could engage Russia to further core U.S. national security interests,” said Mr. McFaul, the former ambassador.

It started out well. The two countries made progress on nuclear proliferation issues, and expanded use of Russian territory to resupply American forces in Afghanistan. Keeping Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon was among the United States’ top priorities, and in June 2010 Russia signed off on a United Nations resolution imposing tough new sanctions on that country.

Two months later, the deal giving ARMZ a controlling stake in Uranium One was submitted to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States for review. Because of the secrecy surrounding the process, it is hard to know whether the participants weighed the desire to improve bilateral relations against the potential risks of allowing the Russian government control over the biggest uranium producer in the United States. The deal was ultimately approved in October, following what two people involved in securing the approval said had been a relatively smooth process.

Not all of the committee’s decisions are personally debated by the agency heads themselves; in less controversial cases, deputy or assistant secretaries may sign off. But experts and former committee members say Russia’s interest in Uranium One and its American uranium reserves seemed to warrant attention at the highest levels.

Photo

Moukhtar Dzhakishev was arrested in 2009 while the chief of Kazatomprom.CreditDaniel Acker/Bloomberg, via Getty Images

“This deal had generated press, it had captured the attention of Congress and it was strategically important,” said Richard Russell, who served on the committee during the George W. Bush administration. “When I was there invariably any one of those conditions would cause this to get pushed way up the chain, and here you had all three.”

And Mrs. Clinton brought a reputation for hawkishness to the process; as a senator, she was a vocal critic of the committee’s approval of a deal that would have transferred the management of major American seaports to a company based in the United Arab Emirates, and as a presidential candidate she had advocated legislation to strengthen the process.

The Clinton campaign spokesman, Mr. Fallon, said that in general, these matters did not rise to the secretary’s level. He would not comment on whether Mrs. Clinton had been briefed on the matter, but he gave The Times a statement from the former assistant secretary assigned to the foreign investment committee at the time, Jose Fernandez. While not addressing the specifics of the Uranium One deal, Mr. Fernandez said, “Mrs. Clinton never intervened with me on any C.F.I.U.S. matter.”

Mr. Fallon also noted that if any agency had raised national security concerns about the Uranium One deal, it could have taken them directly to the president.

Anne-Marie Slaughter, the State Department’s director of policy planning at the time, said she was unaware of the transaction — or the extent to which it made Russia a dominant uranium supplier. But speaking generally, she urged caution in evaluating its wisdom in hindsight.

“Russia was not a country we took lightly at the time or thought was cuddly,” she said. “But it wasn’t the adversary it is today.”

That renewed adversarial relationship has raised concerns about European dependency on Russian energy resources, including nuclear fuel. The unease reaches beyond diplomatic circles. In Wyoming, where Uranium One equipment is scattered across his 35,000-acre ranch, John Christensen is frustrated that repeated changes in corporate ownership over the years led to French, South African, Canadian and, finally, Russian control over mining rights on his property.

“I hate to see a foreign government own mining rights here in the United States,” he said. “I don’t think that should happen.”

Mr. Christensen, 65, noted that despite assurances by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that uranium could not leave the country without Uranium One or ARMZ obtaining an export license — which they do not have — yellowcake from his property was routinely packed into drums and trucked off to a processing plant in Canada.

Asked about that, the commission confirmed that Uranium One has, in fact, shipped yellowcake to Canada even though it does not have an export license. Instead, the transport company doing the shipping, RSB Logistic Services, has the license. A commission spokesman said that “to the best of our knowledge” most of the uranium sent to Canada for processing was returned for use in the United States. A Uranium One spokeswoman, Donna Wichers, said 25 percent had gone to Western Europe and Japan. At the moment, with the uranium market in a downturn, nothing is being shipped from the Wyoming mines.

The “no export” assurance given at the time of the Rosatom deal is not the only one that turned out to be less than it seemed. Despite pledges to the contrary, Uranium One was delisted from the Toronto Stock Exchange and taken private. As of 2013, Rosatom’s subsidiary, ARMZ, owned 100 percent of it.

Correction: April 23, 2015
An earlier version of this article misstated, in one instance, the surname of a fellow at the Hoover Institution. He is Peter Schweizer, not Schweitzer.An earlier version also incorrectly described the Clinton Foundation’s agreement with the Obama administration regarding foreign-government donations while Hillary Rodham Clinton was secretary of state. Under the agreement, the foundation would not accept new donations from foreign governments, though it could seek State Department waivers in specific cases. It was not barred from accepting all foreign-government donations.

Correction: April 30, 2015
An article on Friday about contributions to the Clinton Foundation from people associated with a Canadian uranium-mining company described incorrectly the foundation’s agreement with the Obama administration regarding foreign-government donations while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state. Under the agreement, the foundation would not accept new donations from foreign governments, though it could seek State Department waivers in specific cases. The foundation was not barred from accepting all foreign-government donations.

KELOLAND Investigates: GEAR UP

Since the deadly fire on Sept. 17, 2015 in Platte, SD, KELOLAND News has been investigating the GEAR UP Scandal. We uncovered a number of issues with the $62 million in GEAR UP Grant money that came through the state since 2005. The U.S. Department of Education awarded South Dakota the money to help prepare Native American students for college. The State was required to match every federal dollar. However, our investigation has shown there is no data to prove a single Native American student went to college because of GEAR UP.

When Scott Westerhuis killed his family and himself the Pandora’s Box was opened. Westerhuis was business manager of Mid Central Educational Cooperative, which was contracted out by the state to distribute the grant money. Hours before Westerhuis shot his four children, ranging in age from nine to 16, along with his wife Nicole, the state let Mid Central know there were problems and it was cancelling its contract with the cooperative.

South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley says after killing his family, Scott Westerhuis then set his home on fire and turned the gun on himself. Jackley ruled that Westerhuis acted alone.

Our investigation followed the money and found that there were a number of people involved with conflicts of interest. We also discovered that the state failed to deliver on promises to students and the federal government when it came to GEAR UP.

As the State’s investigation unfolded, we learned that the Westerhuises had embezzled as much as $2 million in grant money.

Three people have since been charged in one of the largest scandals in the state.

The federal investigation continues, as well as state audits that have been expanded in scope to follow the GEAR UP funds.

A South Dakota based consultant is in the middle of federal investigations into fraud committed by dozens of states to get bonuses from the food stamp program.

KELOLAND Investigates first brought you this story in April, now the heat is intensifying on Julie Osnes as another state agrees to pay the federal government back billions and investigators testify before the Senate about the millions of wasted taxpayer dollars.The Justice Department is investigating a number of states for allegedly hiding mistakes in the food stamp program so their states could earn millions in bonuses.

As we told you last April, Julie Osnes ran the food stamp program in South Dakota for two decades.

She went on to consult two dozen other states on their programs and is accused of urging employees in at least three of those states to use dishonest practices in order to get bonuses from the federal government. She never did any consulting work for South Dakota’s DSS.

KELOLAND News reported last spring that Virginia and Wisconsin must pay the feds back $14 million for false food stamp claims.

Now another state that used Julie Osnes Consulting, Alaska, has agreed to pay the feds back $2.5 million for similar problems.

During recent testimony on Capitol Hill, investigators told the Senate Agricultural Committee they discovered the problems after someone turned Osnes in to the the feds.
“Our investigators received a whistle blower complaint related to the activities of a third party consultant working on one state,” USDA assistant inspector general Gil Harden said.

“There was definitely encouragement on the part of third party consultants to misrepresent facts to federal authorities when submitting information to lower their error rate–things like stretching income and expenses and altering documents, things of that nature,” USDA assistant inspector general Ann Coffey said.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture told the Senate Ag Committee that because of those practices, it hasn’t been able to put out an accurate error rate for states on SNAP, the food stamp program.

Brandon Lipps is Administrator of the Food and Nutrition Service at USDA.

“The OIG notes in its report that this consultant started working with states as early as 2004, when states individual error rates started dropping dramatically. So I think there’s been some sort of bias in the system for over a decade,” Lipps said.

“2004? So we have a problem here that could have started 13 years ago,” Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS) asked.

“That’s correct,” Lipps said.

Federal investigators say 42 out of 50 states haven’t been turning in accurate numbers to the feds.

Osnes worked as a consultant for 24 of them. The Office of Inspector General won’t say how many states are still under scrutiny, But it does confirm several investigations are ongoing.

“Have you ever encountered a case like this were so many states were defrauding the federal government,” Sen. Roberts asked.

“Sir, I’ve been doing this job for a number of years and I can can tell you this is a unique situation. We have not encountered this type of investigation previously in my experience,” Coffey said.

“We have no idea how much taxpayer money was wasted. It could be $3 billion it could be $5 billion, it could be $10 billion,” Sen. Roberts asked.

The fewer errors states had in the SNAP program, the more they stood to bonus.

“We have a number of states that have defrauded the federal government and are being investigated. They’re gaming the system,” Sen. Roberts said.

The Department of Agriculture says it’s implemented corrective action plans with the states, hired more federal reviewers and requires approval of contracts with consultants like Osnes before states can enter into them.

Osnes Consulting earned millions of dollars getting states bonuses from the feds. Some of the states now paying the federal government back have indicated they may come after Osnes for some of the money.

Osnes issued us a statement for this story through her attorney:

“The bottom line is the facts are going to show that the SNAP program had extremely ambiguous and difficult to understand rules and regulations. There have been hearings recently in Washington with regards to that problem with officials who have come to the same conclusion. Julie has an expertise and long-standing experience in this field. She was helping states to navigate the mess created by this upside down regulatory scheme.

The facts will show that she brought some uniformity and fairness to the quality control reviews conducted by the states. It appears that some states have elected to pay the federal government rather than defend themselves.

Julie looks forward to defending herself and her company.”— Mike Sullivan, Osness Attorney. Sullivan is with Ellenoff, Grossman & Schole in New York.

Soul-searching
Violence in Berkeley at the hand of “Antifa” activists has spurred soul-searching within the leftist activist movement in the Bay Area and beyond, even as emotions remain raw after a white supremacist rally in Virginia this month that left one woman dead and dozens injured. President Trump received blistering criticism for equating the behavior of Klansmen and neo-Nazis to the actions of those who opposed them. Some fear that Sunday’s violence will only help advance the idea that the two groups are the same.

Trump received blistering criticism for equating the behavior of Klansmen and neo-Nazis to the actions of those who opposed them. Some fear that Sunday’s violence would only help advance the idea that the two sides are the same.

“This is food for the adversary,” said sociologist Todd Gitlin, a founder of Students for a Democratic Society, which organized the first national protests against the Vietnam War. He pointed out that violent acts committed by a few will almost always hijack the narrative of the entire protest, and that it is happening now should be no surprise.

Gitlin also described what he sees as a push by the anti-fascist — also called “antifa” — movement to put “themselves on the map of protest” by using violence to “intimidate” both political opponents and those on the left who promote non-violence. One of the biggest banners at the Berkeley demonstration carried the message “Avenge Charlottesville.”

Militants who showed up Sunday were part of a multifaceted rally in which church leaders sang gospel and anti-fascists shouted profanities. Berkeley police estimated more than 4,000 people came out to take over a city park where far-right activists had called for an anti-Marxism rally. The organizer canceled the event Friday, citing security concerns, but a small number of far-right activists showed up anyway.

By the end of the day, 13 people had been arrested, one on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon and three on battery charges.

Probably one of, if not the, largest (so called) charitable swindles in the history of the United States and it never gets investigated. The Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation.

Wonder why the Clinton Foundation folded so suddenly after she was no longer in a position of influence, perhaps will give some insight into the crooks.

They list 486 employees (line 5)! It took 486 people who are paid $34.8 million and $91.3 million in fees and expenses, to give away $5.1 MILLION

This is real You can check the return yourself (see below). The real heart of the Clintons can be seen here. Staggering but not surprising. These figures are from an official copy of the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation for the tax year 2014. The copy of the tax return is from the National Center for Charitable Statistics website. You can get the latest tax return on any charitable organization there.

Total revenue (line 12) $ 177,804,612.00

Total grants to charity (line 13) $ 5,160,385.00 (that’s less than 3%)

Total expenses $ 91,281,145.00

Expenses include:

Salaries (line 15) $ 34,838,106.00

Fund raising fees (line 16a) $ 850,803.00

Other expenses (line 17) $ 50,431,851.00

Travel ($8 Mill. to give away $5) $ 8,000,000.00

Meetings (What does this mean?) $ 12,000,000.00

They list 486 employees (line 5)! It took 486 people who are paid $34.8 million and $91.3 million in fees and expenses, to give away $5.1 MILLION

Line 22 shows ending year net assets/fund balances of $332,471,349.00 which is up $85,171,891 from last year’s tax return!

An interview President Trump did in 1999 about North Korea’s nuclear program has resurfaced amid the Trump administration’s heightened tensions with Pyongyang.

The interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” features Trump before his entry into political campaigning speaking with host Tim Russert. Trump at the time argued that the United States must stop North Korea sooner rather than later.

“First, I negotiate. I would negotiate like crazy. And I’d make sure that we tried to get the best deal possible,” Trump told Russert.

“Now, if that negotiation doesn’t work, you better solve the problem now than solve it later, Tim. And you know it. And every politician knows it. And nobody wants to talk about it,” Trump said.
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/345881-trumps-1999-interview-on-north-korea-resurfaces-amid-heightened